Piling on the Stress

The last week before spring break and all I can think about is the amount of work headed my way. Today, Thursday March 10th, 2011 is D-Day. With a final English paper due tomorrow as well as two revised papers and two writing contest entries, my evening will consist of nothing but dramatically typing on my laptop to churn out three polished papers and two solid entries. My outlook at this current moment: Bleak.
As many college students struggle to find equilibrium between studying and having a social life this weekend, my weekend will be spent in my bedroom eating ramen with my head crammed in a book. My first final, English, is on Monday and the thought of entering the classroom bright and early completely unprepared terrifies me. I figure that my social life can hit an all time low in order for me to receive an incredible grade (or passing grade...) on my final. I believe the weekend will also consist of doing arm exercises in order for my hands to function at a high level with all the essays I will have to write. I also keep forgetting that I have a final paper due for my precept on Monday. Although I have already written the paper it needs much improvement. Just one more thing that has to be added to my list of to dos. The only thing that might save me from going insane this weekend are a few trips to the gym to work up my endurance. Next week is going to be brutal.
I keep telling myself over and over that it won't be so bad and that the finals I will have to endure after next trimester's classes will be much worse. This isn't helping as I am in the thick of work at this moment. I find that nothing can take my mind off the work that has to be done. I'll be at the gym on the elliptical thinking about how I should be in my room writing a paper or I'll be at work wondering if it is okay to start work on revising a paper. A good question to ask is how many papers can a girl write before she goes bananas? The answer is surprisingly low.
Although it is crunch time and this is the most amount of work in the shortest amount of time I have had to complete here at Union College, I really shouldn't complain. I have friends from other colleges taking six courses that they have finals for! I am lucky to only have three courses, one of which I don't even have an actual final in. Things might seem terrible, but so many other people have it so much worse than I could even imagine. Plus, I still have time to fit in a blog post : )
So I guess the moral of this story is that even though finals are horrible and make you want to rip all your hair out, there is always a silver lining. It is possible to get through finals unscathed and make it to glorious spring break, it just takes a bit of patience, a lot of endurance, and copious amounts of snacks.